Complete shock! Please help/ advise!

savingwannabe

I second the above post. I saw it earlier and really didnt know what to say. You seem to be a really caring person, I wish you well, i am certain you will both overcome this and have a fab family together. We do meet some lovely people on this thread.

SW.

nanna58

just a bit of support you sound like a fab couple :)you are a lovely guy :)yes you can work it out together good luck to you both and luck with your beautiful child xxxxx:):)

Anonymousa

OK, so I know everything, and I believe my OH has told me everything. She's read the thread, cried a bit, and is sitting next to me while I type this.

In Jan 2009 she contacted moneyworries; she didn't set up a repayment plan with them though, which I am relieved about (I've seen them mentioned on here when I was reading other people's experiences last night). But, she didn't pay anything from then. What she did do was list her debts at that time. Two are paid off.

At that time, she owed £5000 on one credit card (this was also the subject of the letter, and is now just over £7500) with a major high street bank, £372 on another credit card with another high st bank. This same bank (number two) she had a £1600 loan with at that time, and an overdraft of £300 with the same account. moneyworries advised her to change banks, and she did, to her current account with another bank. The statements go not to her last address, but the one before, and both of the creditors have that as her address. Bank number one, though, have her parents' address and write to her there.

Her current bank account has no overdraft facility and she says she has never gone overdrawn on it.

She only has two letters - the rest have been thrown. One is the letter I opened from Westcot. The debt to bank number one is this one - that's gone to Westcot, and there is a second letter, dated March, that is from a solicitor saying "contact Westcot or we will tell the creditor to issue proceedings".

I don't know how much the debt is for overall now, but I'd guess at between £10k-£11k. We can deal with that, but it is her debt, so I'm suggesting we try and get an agreed repayment thingy where they either cancel the interest and agree a payment plan, or reduce by whatever percentage. Since her salary is soon to be very little, this might be helpful. We would do this by her phoning the National Debt people plugged on the main debt part of MSE tomorrow.

So, please can you all advise on the following plan of action:
I am suggesting that she (a) phones the National Debt free service tomorrow
(b) lists her income and expenditure to include paying rent to me (she doesn't; we share the house and our lives now, but for the purposes of keeping this separate). Also includes future expenditure including the child, and talks to them as if she was single
(c) asks them to negotiate with her creditors, and DOES reveal where she is, with a willingness to pay what she can afford. Also asks them to contact Westcot/ the solicitors/ whoever
(d) gets her current statements sent here (besides anything else, I'm pretty anal about tracking how much we're spending and I like to be 'safe' and saving some money; hence I have never been in debt save mortgage)

I am completely convinced that this was down to a particular set of circumstances, that is partly an ex, partly her being too generous, and partly that she knows that I dislike debt so didn't tell me. She has also not done anything about it because she didn't want to tell the creditors she's living here!

Any other suggestions? And how is my plan above. Feel free to be brutal (except we really don't need people judging our actual relationship please!) Cheers!!

Material_Girl_2

Could you just say what you told us that you read things on this forum that made you worry as her behaviour is similar to other people on here, trying to hide debt? Then just tell it's no problem if she does have old debt as you're always going to stand by her and that you love her, but you do want to be sure that you're future is secure and free of moneytrouble? This might be enough to get her to open up to you and she may feel relieved that she can talk to you about her problems.

Krisp_3

Hi there - thank you for letting us know what happened.

I think your plan sounds like the right approach to follow, in order to get things moving.

Good luck to the both of you.

DVardysShadow

Anonymousa wrote: »

... So, please can you all advise on the following plan of action:
I am suggesting that she (a) phones the National Debt free service tomorrow
(b) lists her income and expenditure to include paying rent to me (she doesn't; we share the house and our lives now, but for the purposes of keeping this separate). Also includes future expenditure including the child, and talks to them as if she was single
(c) asks them to negotiate with her creditors, and DOES reveal where she is, with a willingness to pay what she can afford. Also asks them to contact Westcot/ the solicitors/ whoever
(d) gets her current statements sent here (besides anything else, I'm pretty anal about tracking how much we're spending and I like to be 'safe' and saving some money; hence I have never been in debt save mortgage)

I am completely convinced that this was down to a particular set of circumstances, that is partly an ex, partly her being too generous, and partly that she knows that I dislike debt so didn't tell me. She has also not done anything about it because she didn't want to tell the creditors she's living here!

Any other suggestions? And how is my plan above. Feel free to be brutal (except we really don't need people judging our actual relationship please!) Cheers!!

Yes, I think you are about right - just going a bit to [STRIKE]far[/STRIKE] fast.

On a) I am not sure whether the National Debt Free service is a free one, which others here would recommend - wait and see what people say about them. But don't rush into this, get your ducks lined up

On b) some of the stickies here provide a link to a web based Statement Of Affairs template. Search the forum for the term 'makesenseofcards' and it should come up, if not someone will arrive with the link. This is excellent - my interest in these tends to be looking at how to shuffle the debt - others tend to look at cutting down costs. Once you go with this it will be looked at from every angle.

On c) and d), I agree

As I said, don't rush. Mrs Anonymousa should just get the statement of affairs done tomorrow and post it here. Leave it for 24 hours and have a think about what has cme out of this.

If she is up to it, she could also give us a little picture of how the debt came about - even if it does not yield any options to reduce the debt, she won't have got into it in a totally novel way - and other who hve fought through similar will probably provide some useful insights.

So, IMO, don't contact a debt relief organisation until Wednesday at the earliest. It is likely to be a better result to let the idea settle for a day or 2 then go with it.

Anonymousa

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Yes, I think you are about right - just going a bit to far.

On a) I am not sure whether the National Debt Free service is a free one, which others here would recommend - wait and see what people say about them. But don't rush into this, get your ducks lined up

On b) some of the stickies here provide a link to a web based Statement Of Affairs template. Search the forum for the term 'makesenseofcards' and it should come up, if not someone will arrive with the link. This is excellent - my interest in these tends to be looking at how to shuffle the debt - others tend to look at cutting down costs. Once you go with this it will be looked at from every angle.

On c) and d), I agree

As I said, don't rush. Mrs Anonymousa should just get the statement of affairs done tomorrow and post it here. Leave it for 24 hours and have a think about what has cme out of this.

If she is up to it, she could also give us a little picture of how the debt came about - even if it does not yield any options to reduce the debt, she won't have got into it in a totally novel way - and other who hve fought through similar will probably provide some useful insights.

So, IMO, don't contact a debt relief organisation until Wednesday at the earliest. It is likely to be a better result to let the idea settle for a day or 2 then go with it.

Thanks.
It's entirely up to Mrs A if she wants to post on here.
We don't actually know what the debts are. To do that, we'd need to contact the two creditors. One of them can't find her at the moment. That's why I thought it might be an idea to ask someone else to negotiate for us in some way.

I don't want to be flippant about other people's debt problems on here, but we are after us getting out of this as cheaply as possible, and to be honest, if interest is still being added to the debt, I can obtain cheaper or free debt to pay it off over three or four years. But as we're not linked financially, her position might mean that we can pay it off quicker if she gets some repayment thing set up. I don't really know.

Point taken about not rushing though.

dancingfairy

I would make sure it's one of the free places Martin recommends that you phone.
No harm in getting views from more than one charity if you want or if you don't 'click' with the first adviser.
Also their recommendations has to be viewed in terms of what will work best for you. What I mean is they may recommend one thing but you may decide that another method would suit you better.
df

Material_Girl_2

Oh, I completely missed you update! I'm glad it's all out in the open now! Good luck getting it all sorted out!

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Anonymousa wrote: »

Thanks. I think the hardest step is going to be confronting her. I don't mean in a harsh way, but I think it will be a harsh thing to do.

So maybe tell her how much you love her, tell her what you've found out, then tell her how much you love her again?
I would also suggest not doing it too late in the evening.

I once heard it said that everybody should swap their problems with someone else because we can all sort out someone else's problems more easily than our own.
See. I've sorted out yours already
EDITED TO SAY THAT I POSTED THIS BEFORE READING FURTHER DOWN THE THREAD - oops !!

I suppose if she owed a bit more, bankruptcy might have been a reasonable option for her. Get the whole lot wiped for about £600. I believe that under £15k it would have to be a DRO but not sure how that would work out as it's unclear which items would be regarded as her assets.